Most people agree that eating healthy food is important. But sometimes making good food choices can be difficult. Now, there are apps that can help people learn about the food they eat to improve their health and their dining out experience.

    Open Table app

    Open Table app helps people choose restaurants when they want to go out to eat. It is a free service that shows users restaurant available based on where and when they want to dine. It gives users points when they make reservations(预定), which can add up to discounts on restaurant visits.

    Max McCalman's Cheese & Wine Pairing app

    Wine and cheese can be a great combination. But which wines go best with which cheeses? Max McCalman's Cheese & Wine Pairing app can help. It provides information about hundreds of different cheeses and suggests wines to pair with each. Max McCalman's Cheese & Wine Pairing app is free.

    HappyCow app

    Vegetarians do not eat animal meat. Vegans do not eat any animal products. The HappyCow app is made for both groups. Users can search for vegetarian-vegan restaurants and stores around the world.

    LocalEats app

    Restaurant chains, like McDonalds, can be found almost anywhere a person might travel. But sometimes travelers want to eat like locals. The LocalEats app is designed for that. It can help you find local restaurants in major cities in the US and in other countries. It costs about a dollar.

    Where Chefs Eat app

     “Where Chefs Eat” is a 975-page book. Most people would not want to carry that around. But there is a much lighter app version of the same name for just $15. Six hundred chefs provide information on 3,000 restaurants around the world on the Where Chefs Eat app.

    Lately a popular eight-floor bookstore in Hefei,Anhui province,has risen to fame because it becomes the world's first shared bookstore,in a move meant to encourage more reading among Chinese citizens.

    It comes to people's attention as more than 200,000 visitors flooded the store on its first day as a shared bookstore on July 16 this year,a record high since it was reopened to the public in 2013.Some 4,000 books were brought home on the first day,Thepaper.cn reported.

    Customers are allowed to borrow up to two books valued under 150 yuan per visit after registering with an app and paying the 99 yuan deposit fee（押金）.

    All books on sale in the bookstore are available for sharing.Returned books that are damaged are sold at a discount.The bookstore also provides a bonus for bookworms.People who finish reading 12 books in three months receive eight percent of their deposit back,and members can be rewarded one yuan for every book read.

    "We want to bring down the cost of reading so people could read more books,"Xu Xinwei,who helps run the bookstore,told Thepaper.cn.

    Some parents buy a lot of books for their children,but they usually end up collecting dust as their children grow up.Similarly,some popular novels for young people also fall out of fashion,according to Xu."Books are more effectively circulated when they're shared."

    Is smile just a facial expression? Of course not! It is not only used to express pleasure, affection, and friendliness, but also the commonest way to show our good will perfectly without saying anything. A Chinese saying runs： “Never hit a person who is smiling at you.” It is a time-proven fact that smile is a language all its own—a universal language—understood by the people of every nation in the world. We may not speak the same tongue as our foreign neighbors, but we smile in the same tongue. We need no interpreter for thus expressing love, happiness, or good will.

    One day while shopping in a small town in southern California, it was my misfortune to be approached by a clerk whose personality conflicted with mine. He seemed quite unfriendly and not at all concerned about my intended purchase. I bought nothing, and marched angrily out of the store. On the outside stood a young man in his early twenties. His expressive brown eyes met and held mine, and in the next instant a beautiful, brilliant smile covered his face. The magic power of that smile made all bitterness within me melt, and I found the muscles in my own face happily responding. “Beautiful day, isn't it?” I remarked, in passing. Then, obeying an impulse(冲动), I turned back. “I really owe you a debt of gratitude,” I said softly. His smile deepened, but he made no attempt to answer. A Mexican woman and two men were standing nearby. The woman stepped forward and eyed me inquiringly. “Carlos, he no speak English,” she volunteered. “You want I should tell him something?” At that moment I felt changed. Carlos' smile had made a big person of me. My friendliness and good will toward all mankind stood ten feet tall. “Yes,” my reply was enthusiastic and sincere, “tell him I said, 'Thank you!' “Thank you?” The woman seemed slightly confused.

    I gave her arm a friendly pat as I turned to leave. “Just tell him that.” I insisted. “He'll understand, I am sure!”

    Oh, what a smile can do! Although I have never seen that young man again, I shall never forget the lesson he taught me that morning. From that day on, I became smile-conscious, and I practice the art diligently, anywhere and everywhere, with everybody.

    On a recent night, while I was busy thinking about important social issues, like what to do over the week﹣end and who to do it with, I overheard my parents talking about my future. My dad was upset not the usual stuff that he and Mom and, I guess, a lot of parents worry about like which college I' m going to, how far away it is from home. Instead, he was upset about the world his generation is turning over to mine, a world he fears has a dark and difficult future if it has a future at all.

    "There will be a disease that kills millions, a disastrous energy crisis, a horrible worldwide depression and a nuclear explosion set off in anger."

    As I lay on the living room couch, listening to their conversation, starting to worry about the future my father was describing, I found myself looking at some old family photos.  There was a picture of my grandfather who was a member of the class of 1942, the war class. Next to his picture were photos of my great﹣grandparents. Seeing those pictures made me feel a lot better. I believe tomorrow will be better than today — that the world my generation grows into is going to get better, not worse. Those pictures helped me understand why.

    I considered some of the awful things my grandparents and great﹣grandparents had seen in their lifetimes: two world wars, killer flu, segregation（隔离） , a nuclear bomb.  But they saw other things, too, better things: the end of two world wars, passage of the civil rights laws.

    I believe that my generation will see better things, too that we will witness the time when AIDS is cured and cancer is defeated. I will see things as incredible to me today as the internet to my father when he was 16.

    A conference was held with former technology industry leaders calling for urgent measures to protect children from smartphone addiction (上瘾).

    Among those urging major changes is Tristan Harris—a former high-level employee at Google. He just launched a group that will seek to gather and publish evidence of how digital devices and social media can harm children and young people. Harris says he believes companies like Google, Facebook and Apple have a "moral responsibility" not to create technology products that can "hijack how the mind works".

    The conference where Harris spoke was sponsored by Common Sense Media, a child and family activist group. The organization says research suggests that half of all teenagers feel addicted to their mobile devices, while about 60 percent of parents believe their kids are addicted.

    The group also cites a recent study of eighth graders that found heavy users of technology were 56 percent more likely to say they are unhappy, while 27 percent more likely to be depressed. Even Facebook cited research last year suggesting that social media use can harm mental health when used in certain ways.

    James Steyer is the founder of Common Sense. He says more than half of schools in the US are already members of the organization. The group provides teachers and parents with learning materials intended to help students develop critical thinking skills and balance their digital lives.

    Some US schools, however, have tried to limit or remove technology to improve learning. One of them is in Silicon Valley, the center of the American tech-industry.

    The Waldorf School of the Peninsula does not use any computers or digital technology in its education programs up to the seventh grade. The schools' website says while Waldorf teachers recognize the role technology can play in the classroom, it must wait until the student reaches the right developmental age. Normally when students reach high school, they are allowed to use computers and digital tools in the classroom.

Freelance writers Wanted

    Associated Content is an online publishing platform that enables anyone to earn money by writing articles on the Web.

    Writing for AC is a great work opportunity for students, stay­at­home parents and freelance writers. You can work on your own time and provide papers, reviews, essays, etc. on any topic that you have interest in. This is a job you can do from anywhere—all you need is access to the Internet.

    Here's how you get started:

    ⑴ Go to www.associatedcontent.com/join/hotjobs.

    ⑵ Follow the instructions to register.

    ⑶ Follow in your profile (简介),making note of your previous experience and your areas of experience (if any).

    ⑷ Start providing articles. You'll begin earning money as soon as your articles are published and the amount is based on the page views it receives.

    In addition to our own library of content, we have hundreds of partners (Partner Content Team) who work with AC to obtain high­quality. As such, there are lots of opportunities for our most talented and productive writers to accept "Partner Assignments" on an as­needed basis.

    If you're interested in accepting higher paying Partner Assignments, send us a link to your AC profile once you have provided at least five articles. We will review all articles and pass them along to our Partner Content Team. If selected, you will start receiving special paid assignments from us on a regular basis, which you are free to accept or ignore.

    NOTE: we pay our writers via PayPal daily.

    Any questions ? Email me: demel@asociatedcontent.com